13.1 Miles of Campaigning

At this time of year, most people are winding down and getting out of shape. I, however, am feeling like I'm ramping up and getting quite fit. I ran 43 miles last week, my largest volume in over two years. I raced a 10K last weekend and did a half marathon this past Sunday. I'm just training right through these races and am just doing them as speed work and in the case of yesterday, a bit of campaign work. As you can see from my bib number, I was one of those guys who turned a fun family event into a political statement. Don't hate. The hilly course really suited me as I've lost my speed but I've been able to hold on to my strength. Guys would past me on the flats and the downhill and I would repass them on the uphills. About 4 miles into the race, an asian guy went by me and I noticed he had the shortest stride with the fastest turnover, similar to the tiny Japanese female marathoners. All of sudden, I became self-conscious about my own stride, fearing that I too looked like a small Japanese woman so I intentionally started to open my stride. It worked as I re-passed him and was now in what I thought, to be in the top asian spot. I always have two goals when I race: do the best I can on that day and be the top asian. The entire race felt like a tempo run effort and I never resorted to mummy breathing. I worked my way up from 20th place or so to 11th by the finish, and to my surprise, I was the second asian across the line, losing by 10 seconds. Where did he come from? My only regret is that I ran a bit scared and a bit too conservatively. Now I'm hunkering down for what I believe to be my last triathlon of the season this coming weekend. I say believe because I've been strangely racing a lot this year, the year that I'm supposed to be taking a break from racing. The goal of this tri is to just have fun and if fun means racing hard, then race hard. But if it means racing comfortably, then I'll race comfortably. And then it's time to switch to full marathon training and then pick a marathon to race, my first in over eight years, stand alone marathon that is. BTW, VOTE for Obama and NO on Prop 8...pretty please.